As the clock moves past noon and toward 1 p.m. today, we take a moment to reflect on three shots fired four decades ago in Dallas that were heard throughout the world and continue to echo today.

Between those hours, President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was shot from a sixth-floor window in the Texas Schoolbook Depository. Less than an hour later, at Parkland Memorial Hospital, our 35th president of the United States was pronounced dead as hundreds gathered outside the emergency room in shock and disbelief.

We don't have to be looking at the grassy knoll to realize how the assassination affected not only the future of America and the world, but the future of journalism. Take the former schoolbook depository that now serves as a museum that communicates information as well as honors the events of those days.

Television came of age on Nov. 22, 1963, particularly two days later when Texas law enforcement officers attempted to move the accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, from the Dallas city jail to the Dallas County jail and Oswald was gunned down - with millions of stunned Americans watching as Jack Ruby jumped in front of Oswald and pulled the trigger.

The boob tube has inundated us the past couple of weeks with several TV specials reliving those events. Discussing everything from conspiracy theories to investigating the assassination with today's technology to talking to the brother of Lee Harvey Oswald - who will tell NBC's Today this morning that his brother acted alone, incidentally - networks are taking advantage of the anniversary that ends with a zero, as well as to make money and capitalize now on those who may not be around for the 50th anniversary.

We join many Americans today in saying a prayer not only for family members of those involved or affected but also for our country. And we can't help but wonder how history would have been different if the assassin had missed his mark or been headed off from his appointment with history by someone or something.

Thinking about these words, we think back to earlier this week, when at least four TV helicopters hovered over an airplane that landed in California then followed a caravan of vehicles to the sally port of the Santa Barbara county jail. Michael Jackson stepped out of a car, his hands handcuffed behind him, and surrendered himself to authorities.

Satellite trucks, photographers and videographers scurried around outside and screamed over cell phones. Vehicles later sped away, and we were showed the same images of the accused over and over and over again. Attorneys, self-proclaimed experts and others will fill talk show schedules for days, maybe weeks.

Yet another example of how far we've come - or gone - since that fateful day in Dallas 40 years ago. What would JFK have thought?